Green lawn care tips

Your yard can be both lush and environmentally friendly

A lush turf can bring a sense of elegance, stability and formality to complement informal beds of perennials and trees.

Photograph by: Horticulture
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For many of us, the lawn is the biggest part of our yard. A lush turf can bring a sense of elegance, stability and formality to complement informal beds of perennials and trees.

They can be places for children to play, places for picnics, or just places to wander aimlessly and enjoy the garden around you.

While beautiful, however, lawns can waste a lot of resources. Here are some tips on how to keep your lawn healthy, lush, and as environmentally friendly as possible.

WATERING

One of my pet peeves is seeing sprinklers at 4 p.m. on a hot day launching watery mist as high into the air as possible. This method waters the air more than the lawn, and most of the potable water used evaporates long before it touches the ground.

Watering in the afternoon wastes massive amounts of water. Try watering in the morning or in the evening, although the latter will make your lawn vulnerable to powdery mildew if it's cloudy and cool.

All a lawn needs to stay green and lush is one inch of water per week. If you don't water deeply, most will evaporate before it reaches the root system.

Place an empty tuna can in the grass within the average reach of your sprinkler and time how long it takes to fill. That's how much watering your turf needs on an average summer week.

How much water your lawn needs also depends on what kind of lawn you have. Kentucky Blue Grass isn't hardy here and, thanks to its shallow root system, sucks up a lot of water. Grasses like fescues and native rye grasses need much less.

MOWING

While buzz-cutting your lawn might make it look like a golf green, its health will suffer in the long run. A short lawn will not only dry out and burn faster; it will be less able to deal with invasive weeds.

Try to have your blades sharpened every spring and set them slightly higher. Your lawn's root system is only as deep and efficient as the blades of grass are long, so try to mow your lawn so it's two-and-ahalf to three inches high.

FERTILIZING AND WEEDING

The days of pouring almost pure nitrogen on your lawn are, thankfully, over. Today's turf fertilizers are typically comprised of slow-release granules that release nutrients over several months.

Slow-release nutrients stay in the turf roots and most don't need to be watered in.

As I mentioned above, a long, lush lawn will choke out most weeds. I recommend pulling stubborn weeds by hand just after watering when the soil is moist and soft.

TRENDS WITH LAWNS

The most popular thing to do with lawns these days is to get rid of them. Many people feel that lawns take up too much space in the yard, so they are downsizing them to make room for vegetable or perennial beds.

Lawns require a fair amount of maintenance, especially as they age, to remain lush and vibrant. Lawns contribute little to the yard in the way of bio-diversity, while a bed full of perennials will attract bees, birds, and other beneficial creatures.

People are starting to be more critical of their lawns and what they are used for. A few decades ago it was common for yards to be all lawn; now people are leaving only the amount of grass lawn that they need for specific things - kids' playground, picnic area, etc.

With the lawn we're leaving behind, the trend is to use mixes with more rye and fescue seed, which require less maintenance and less water. Mixes with large percentages of Kentucky Blue grass are the most ornamental, but they suck up a lot of water.

Rob Sproule is author of Gardening with Colour, Creative Design Ideas for Canadian Gardens (Lone Pine Publishing) and co-owner of Salisbury Greenhouse in Sherwood Park. For more information, go to salisburygreenhouse.com. rob@saliburygreenhouse.com twitter.com/SalisburyGarden